Isabella Ng is assistant professor and associate head of the Department of Asian and Policy Studies at The Education University of Hong Kong. She is also the author of the newly published book Hong Kong Rural Women under Chinese rule: Gender Politics, Reunification and Globalisation in Post-colonial Hong Kong.
To the villagers, the Yuen Long attack could have been understood as self-defence – against the anti-extradition and increasingly anti-Beijing protests that have spread from the city centre to the outlying areas of Hong Kong.